by C. L. Taylor
In Memoriam
In loving memory of Stan Eric Holloway
The world may change from year to year And friends from day to day, But never will the one I loved From memory pass away.
Sleep.
We crave it, that blissful darkness that rocks us in its arms and carries us away from our cares and our worries. Life is struggle but sleep is an escape. It is the womb to which we return when our limbs are heavy and our minds are tired. Sometimes we fight it. We struggle to remain awake. Our guilt, or misplaced loyalty, keeps us rooted to this coil, too afraid to move on to the next.
I was twenty-five the first time I helped someone to sleep. Her name was Eileen Cutherbert and she was eighty-seven years old. She’d been transferred from her nursing home to hospital after suffering a stroke and, in the two days she’d been in critical care, she hadn’t had a single visitor. The next of kin listed on her medical records was a Millicent White, manager of Sunshine Care Home. Her next of kin was someone she wasn’t related to? That struck me as terribly sad. Eileen wasn’t wearing a wedding ring when she came in and, if she had had children they were obviously no longer part of her life, if they were even alive. I couldn’t stop thinking about her when I went home from work after my shift. What did she have to look forward to when she returned to the care home? She was paralysed down one side. She couldn’t feed herself, she couldn’t speak and, in all likelihood, she would never walk again. It was terribly cruel, I felt, for her to have to live a half-life. If an animal were in the same state we’d put it down and end its misery.
The next day, when I returned to work, I held her hand and stroked her thin grey hair back over her flaky pink scalp and I promised her that I would help her. She looked at me with her cloudy blue eyes and her lopsided mouth twitched horribly. She wanted to sleep. I was in no doubt about that.
There was something very beautiful about the speed with which Eileen Cutherbert slipped from consciousness into the blissful arms of a coma. I was by her side as she took her last breath. I held her hand, as I’d held my mother’s hand many years before, and I told her to let go. My heart swelled with love as her chest rose and then fell for the last time and her fingers slackened in my palm.
The longer I worked as a nurse the more difficult it became to help people to sleep but I persevered, in memory of my mum, who’d suffered so much in life and only found peace in sleep. I helped a mother who survived a car accident, but lost her child, to reunite with her baby. I helped an acid attack victim escape the pain of her disfigured future and I aided a red-nosed pensioner whose most faithful companion was a pint of ale.
I am no angel of mercy. I am flawed and ugly but I am compassionate and merciful. I am also determined. That is my most admirable quality.
Chapter 47
Anna
Christine doesn’t step into the corridor; instead she remains in the shadows of the stairwell, her gaze flicking from her closed bedroom door to my clenched hand, the master key hidden within my fist, and then to my face. The cheery smile she’d normally greet me with is gone. Her lips are a tight, thin line, her eyes narrowed, steely behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. I can’t move. I’m gripped by such a powerful, abject terror that, even though my brain is screaming at me to run, my feet are rooted to the floor.
As she walks towards me she forces a smile, incongruous against the tight set of her face. ‘Is everything all right, Anna? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
She knows I’ve been in her room and seen her book. She’s smiling up at me but, beneath the faux concern of her words, her rage is icy cold. I need to reply, to scream or shout or act, but there’s a void in my brain where my thoughts used to be.
‘Anna?’ She takes a step towards me, narrowing the space between us. I don’t know who she is any more. Where once I saw a warm, caring woman, now I see a monster, obsessed with sleep and death. She’s the one who’s been haunting me since the accident, sending me terrifying messages telling me to sleep and trying to lure me to my death. Why? I want to scream the question in her face and burst into tears at the same time. Why would you do this? Why did you come after me?
‘Anna? Christine?’ A male voice from the stairwell makes me jump. Christine spins round to see who it is.
Joe, one hand resting on the wall, looks lazily in my direction. ‘Is this meeting happening soon? Because Fiona says dinner’s ready.’
Meeting? For a second I don’t know what he’s talking about but then I remember, I sent Melanie downstairs to keep the others away so I could look through their rooms.
‘Dinner?’ Christine says brightly. ‘I don’t know about you, Anna, but I’m starving. I’m sure the meeting can wait, can’t it?’
The change in her demeanour is astonishing. Her face and voice have softened and she’s herself again, or at least the self she pretends to be.
‘Anna?’ Joe says. ‘Is that okay?’
‘I … um … I …’
He frowns as I search for the right words.
‘I … yes, that’s fine. Can I have a quick word with you, please?’
I skirt around Christine and half run, half stumble down the corridor towards him. His frown deepens as I get closer and he looks from me to Christine and then back again.
‘I’m just going to get a scarf from my room,’ Christine says, taking her room key out of her pocket. ‘Then I’ll be right down.’
Joe moves to walk down the stairs but I’m fixed to the spot as Christine lets herself into her room. My blood freezes as she dips down and picks up a small piece of paper from the floor. It’s David’s obituary notice. I forgot to put it back in the book.
‘Anna?’ Joe says as Christine whips round and fixes me with an icy stare. ‘Are we going back downstairs or what?’
The second we reach the bottom of the stairs I burst into tears. Joe stands awkwardly at my side as I cling to the banister, pressing my hand over my mouth to try to stifle my sobs.
‘What is it?’ he asks. ‘What’s the matter?’
I glance up the stairs, terrified that Christine will walk back down at any moment. Low voices drift from beneath the closed lounge door and the sound of clinking crockery carries through from the dining room.
‘Anna?’ Joe says again. ‘What is it?’
‘Not here.’ I yank open the front door, not bothering to pull on my coat or my boots.
Joe follows me outside, pausing to grab his coat from the rack. He drapes it over my shoulders as I press myself up against the porch, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me upright. Beyond the glow of the hotel it’s pitch black. The clouds, heavy with rain, block out the light of the stars and the moon. Even if I could get the Land Rover across the river I’d be stranded in the dark as soon as it ran out of petrol. There’s no way I’d be able to find my way across the island virtually blindfolded.
‘Please, Anna,’ Joe says, his tone suddenly gruff. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’
I shake my head. ‘You won’t believe me.’
‘Try me.’
‘Christine’s been stalking me.’
‘What?’ He physically jolts.
‘It began in London, after I was in a car accident. I started to receive disturbing messages telling me to sleep. At first I thought a man called Steve Laing was behind them. His son, Freddy, died in the accident.’ I give Joe a long look. ‘I was driving.’
‘Jesus.’ He stares at me in shock. ‘You mentioned a car accident but I didn’t know people had died. My God, Anna.’ He presses a hand to my arm, just the lightest of touches before his hand falls away again. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
The concern in his eyes makes my throat tighten and tears prick at my eyes but I blink them away.
‘You’ve mentioned those names to me before,’ Joe says. ‘Steve and Freddy. You asked me over dinner if I knew them.’
I can hear the question in his voice. He’s trying to work out why I asked him about them.
‘W
hen I came to Rum,’ I say, looking back at him, ‘I thought the stalking would stop but then that message appeared on the window – TO DIE, TO SLEEP.’
‘That was real?’
‘Of course it was.’
‘Sorry. It was just … a bit weird. None of us knew what you were on about. If I’m honest I thought the shock of David’s death had …’ He shrugs off the rest of the sentence.
‘You thought I’d lost it?’
‘Maybe a bit. I still don’t get what makes you think Christine’s involved.’
‘I found a book in her room just now, a poetry collection, about sleep. There were obituary notices pasted into it.’
He shakes his head.
‘The kind of thing people send in to newspapers,’ I explain. ‘In loving memory of Auntie Laura, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, right.’ He nods but I can tell from the look on his face that he still doesn’t understand.
‘There were dozens of them, Joe, dozens and dozens. And she’d handwritten one for David. I think she killed all the people in that book, including him.’
‘Wow.’ He runs a hand over his hair and stares out at the rain. He doesn’t believe me. Why would he? How many female serial killers in their sixties or seventies make the news? But I know Christine was the one who left the insulin in my room and took the floorboard out. I have never been more certain of anything.
‘Has she ever mentioned her children or grandchildren?’ I ask. ‘Has she ever mentioned a Steve, Freddy or Peter?’
Joe shakes his head. ‘Not to me.’
‘A recent bereavement?’
‘No, sorry, no.’ He falls silent then sighs heavily. I can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t believe me. ‘What do you want me to do, Anna?’
‘I want you to ask her for the book of poetry. It’s the only proof I’ve got that she’s behind all this.’
I wait outside, the front door cracked open, watching as Joe lumbers up the stairs to the first floor. As time ticks by Fiona comes out of the dining room, David’s apron fastened around her waist. She doesn’t see me watching as she crosses the lobby and goes into the lounge, leaving the door ajar.
I hear Melanie say, ‘Where is she? We’ve been waiting here for ages. Katie’s hungry,’ then the low murmur of Fiona’s reply.
A couple of seconds later she comes back out again and returns to the dining room. As the door clicks behind her Joe’s socks appear at the top of the stairs. The tight knot in my stomach loosens, just the tiniest bit, as he steps down into the lobby and I see the book clutched in his right hand. I can’t believe Christine’s given it to him. She wouldn’t dare do anything else to me now she knows Joe knows the truth.
‘What did you say?’ I ask as he joins me outside, gently closing the door behind him. It’s all I can do not to snatch the book out of his hand.
‘I told her I fancied reading some poetry and asked if she could recommend any. She gave me this.’ He holds the anthology out to me.
I look at the book. The title’s the same as the one I found, so’s the faded countryside scene on the jacket – a huge primrose moon peering between the black skeletons of leafless trees – but the pages aren’t yellowed and the cover isn’t curled. I flick through it but, while the book I saw had faded newspaper cuttings glued to the pages, all the poetry is still visible in this book; it’s practically pristine.
‘It’s not the same book. She must have given you a different copy. I know that sounds mental,’ I add as Joe sighs heavily. ‘But I swear to you, this isn’t the book I saw. There’s nothing in this one.’ I hold it by the cover and shake it. Nothing falls out.
‘Anna,’ Joe says softly, his eyes clouded with worry, ‘I … I think you’ve had a stressful time recently and … um … I’m not saying you’re lying, and I believe you when you say you saw something in Christine’s book, but … whatever it was you saw, it’s not there now.’
‘Can you go back up to her?’ I beg. ‘Please. Go up and ask if you can look through her other books, or we can wait until she’s at dinner and search her room together. I’ve got a master key.’
‘I’m not doing that, Anna.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not searching someone else’s room. It’s an invasion of privacy.’
‘But she tried to kill me! She removed the plank at the top of the stairs.’
‘That plank was always loose, you told me as much when we carried David upstairs. What happened to you was awful, but it was an accident.’
‘That’s what she wants you to think! You don’t believe me because you’ve bought into her nice little old lady act and you think I’m a horrible person for agreeing to keep Trevor locked up in the utility room. I know what happened to your brother, Joe, and I know you’re hurting but I could end up dead too if you don’t help me and…’ the words dry up in my throat as Joe’s expression darkens.
‘Leave Will out of this, Anna.’
‘You punched a wall, didn’t you?’ I reach for his hand, the knuckles still red and sore. ‘I get it. I know all about guilt, Joe. But what happened to your brother wasn’t your fault. You have to know there was nothing you could have done to stop—’
He yanks his hand away and opens the front door. ‘I can’t do this, Anna. I’m sorry. I thought I could help you but I can’t.’
Chapter 48
‘Joe!’ I follow him back into the hotel but, before I reach him, Fiona walks out into the lobby.
‘Oh! There you are.’ Her gaze drifts down from the oversized coat around my shoulders to the socks on my feet and she raises her eyebrows. ‘Dinner’s ready. Do you still want to hold that meeting first or …’ She tails off as Katie comes out of the lounge.
She crosses her feet at the ankles and looks hopefully across at me. ‘Can we have dinner now, please?’
It feels so surreal, a conversation about food when upstairs, holed away in her room, is someone who wants me dead.
‘Anna.’ Joe, standing at the bottom of the staircase, almost barks my name. ‘People are hungry. They need to eat.’
He thinks I’m unstable or that I’ve completely lost the plot.
‘Of course.’ I force the words out of my mouth. ‘Of course we should eat.’
I nearly cry out when Christine walks into the dining room. She smiles warmly at Katie, sitting nearest the door, and takes a seat next to her, opposite Joe. The smile remains fixed on her face as she turns her attention to him.
‘Have you read any of that poetry yet?’
I hold my breath. Please, I pray as I lean back in my seat so I can see past Melanie, who’s sitting between us. Please, Joe, ask her if there’s another copy.
‘Not yet,’ Joe says dully. ‘Maybe after dinner.’
‘I think you’ll enjoy it.’ Christine’s gaze flicks back to me. ‘Do you enjoy poetry, Anna?’
Before I can answer, Fiona walks through from the kitchen with a saucepan full of food. Silence falls as she dishes tuna pasta into our bowls then takes her seat at the end of the table. Malcolm, sitting opposite me, keeps his gaze fixed on his dinner as he shovels it into his mouth. I move my food around my bowl with my fork.
‘Lost your appetite, Anna?’ Christine asks. ‘Bagsy your leftovers.’
As everyone laughs I fight back tears. There isn’t a single person around this table who’d believe me if I told them the truth about her. She’s hoodwinked them all and, without her book, I haven’t got any proof. There’s no point trying to search her room again. The book won’t be there. Now she knows I’ve seen it she’ll have hidden it somewhere I can never find it – that’s if she hasn’t got it on her.
‘Don’t go yet,’ Fiona says as Joe pushes his chair back from the table and stands up, his empty bowl in his hand. ‘I’ve got a little post-dinner treat for everyone.’
As he sits back down she hurries back to the kitchen. A couple of minutes later she appears with a tray holding eight steaming mugs.
‘It’s hot chocolate,’ she says.
‘We found some evaporated milk at the back of the cupboard. I know a lot of us have been craving something sweet so hopefully this will hit the spot.’
The mugs are greeted with indifference by some, curiosity by others and suspicion by Malcolm, who blows on it then dips his little finger in for a taste. I take a sip of mine, then another. I’ve got no appetite but I can’t remember the last time I had something to drink.
Katie takes a tentative sip then raises her eyebrows appreciatively. ‘Quite good.’
Fiona laughs. ‘Praise indeed.’
‘It’s lovely, Fiona,’ I say as I drain my mug, grab my full bowl of pasta and stand up. ‘Thank you.’
‘What are you doing?’ she asks as I head towards the kitchen.
‘Clearing my things.’
‘You’ve only got one working arm! Sit down, we can do it.’
‘It’s fine.’ I nudge the kitchen door with my good shoulder and it swings open. I head towards the sink but as I step forwards something rushes at my foot, making me trip. As I struggle to stop myself from falling I bash against the bin, knocking it over.
‘Sorry, boy.’ I drop to my knees and peer between the fridge and the wall where the cat has backed itself up against the legs of the ironing board. It won’t come out, despite my coaxing, but it doesn’t look injured – just pissed off – so I grab a bin bag from the drawer and tidy up the mess on the floor. I mindlessly shovel vegetable peelings, cans, packets, tubs, tins, a blister pack of pills and some stained cellophane into the black plastic and then reach for a strip of blackened banana skin. I pause and reach back into the bag for the blister pack. Diazepam. That’s another name for Valium, the medication Trevor said was stolen from his room.
Keeping one eye on the kitchen door, I shovel the rest of the rubbish back into the bin then look again at the empty blister pack in my hands. I am certain it wasn’t in the bin earlier. I know because I emptied it and left the back door unlocked in case Trevor wanted to sneak in unnoticed to get food or drink. But who put them in here? The guests have been going in and out of the kitchen all day, helping themselves to snacks and hot drinks. There are three saucepans on the stove: one empty that must have been used to boil the pasta, one with the remains of a tuna tomato sauce smeared over the base and sides, and one with congealed hot chocolate sitting in the bottom. A dark thought settles in the back of my brain. Why take Trevor’s medication and keep the tablets unless you were going to use them for something? I pick up the wooden spoon, dripping chocolate onto the counter, and move it through the gloop in the bottom of the saucepan. It’s the first time we’ve had hot chocolate after a meal. It’s either a complete coincidence and I’m paranoid or I’ve just drunk something loaded with crushed Valium.
